The Challenge Of Preparing The Next Generation of ICT Leadership In Pakistan
Of the many challenges that our nation faces, educating and training of our youth is one of the most important. We need to prepare the next generation of information and communication technology professionals who are skilled, knowledgeable and competitive. We need to cultivate leadership from the next generation who can solve problems through research and innovation.
Currently we face a shortage of skilled engineers and researchers. Even if you combine the graduates of all tiers of universities and colleges, the numbers are far below the need. But there’s an even bigger challenge - are we producing the right quality of resources? The answer is a definite NO.
There is work to be done in many areas. Funding the right programs, education policy, quality of existing education, training fresh graduates to transition to a professional life etc. I get plenty of mails and comments from students looking for internship or ideas for projects. It is evident from these interactions that many do not have the training to do fundamental research. They also lack the necessary communication skills which are critical to meet the global workforce standards. The lack of information about what opportunities are available to them further hinders their prospects.
On a positive note there are groups and agencies which are working to make a difference. I recently heard about a promising effort: The National ICT R&D Fund. Here are some excerpts from an email from the General Manager Solicitation and Evaluation, of this Fund.
National ICT R&D Fundwas created in January 2007 by Ministry of IT with the vision to transform Pakistan’s economy into a knowledge based economy by promoting efficient, sustainable and effective ICT (IT and Telecommunications) initiatives through synergy of industrial and academic resources. We have significant funds available for proposals that are geared towards creating ICT related technologies. We have a very positive and nurturing attitude and would like to fund projects that enhance the state of the art and create opportunities by solving industrial problems.
This year we are planning to build a portal for all the stake holders where the students, academia, and industry will be able to find information of their interest. Researchers outside of Pakistan are welcome to send proposals for collaborative research in Pakistan.
In recent past, we have funded several development and research projects in collaboration with industry and academia in Pakistan. These projects include 4th Generation Telecom Infrastructure, Network Performance Monitoring, Network Security, Medical Image Processing and e-learning Systems.
Applications for ICT related technical proposals are welcome from industry as well as academia individually or collaboratively. We also provide active support in developing proposals by providing feedback on your ideas and help create proposals from concepts.
Detailed information about our activities is available on our website www.ictrdf.org.pk. Application forms can also be downloaded from this website.
I hope that students and researchers will make use of this opportunity and provide suggestions and feedback to the managers of this fund. Please leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions.
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At this time we need philosopher, mathematicains, scholar, and scientist to teach us, not those closed minded so called “skilled engineers or technicians”, because untill we don’t clear our minds from confusions, we will not be able to succeed, do any thing positive.
Because if we study from these closed minded people, we may produce good “machines”, machines which will work for machines and make more machines but we will not be able to produce intellectuals, who actually shape the whole society, who actually are creator of great research.
sorry if this things go some where else.
Adil, can you elaborate on the closed minded engineers part? I hope you dont mean to say that all engineers are closed minded.
Wow, what a negative feed back.
babar sb, definitely, I think you must initiate the projects with in the educational instituutes which are established and producing good results.
From the point of view of ICT, I think two areas i CAN THINK OF which is
design and development for hardware,
secondly application development. like a peer to peer applications which you can designa nd develop further adding features as we get along.
I hope my feed back is a little bit open and positive,
thanks,